Behind The-Benghazi Talking Points: Petraeus’ Revenge [View all]

[kpete]

Benghazi Talking Points: Petraeus’ Revenge
Posted on May 11, 2013 by emptywheel

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Consider how this rolled out. While ABC got the credit for the scoop, Cheney propagandist Stephen Hayes first published some of the emails (which ABC notes). Then Hayes did a follow-up story that was downright literary, a tribute to its maligned hero, David Petraeus.

CIA director David Petraeus was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15. One day earlier, analysts with the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis had drafted a set of unclassified talking points policymakers could use to discuss the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. But this new version​—​produced with input from senior Obama administration policymakers​—​was a shadow of the original.

Hayes’ new story is one depicting Petraeus’ disappointment when his (self-serving and deceptive) preferred narrative did not survive review by the Department whose Ambassador Petraeus’ Agency had gotten killed. It emphasizes the enemy the CIA would like to highlight — Ansar al-Sharia — and not Petraeus’ militia whose inaction had been at least as important to the success of the attack. It claims (this entire campaign being evidence to the contrary) that Petraeus resigned himself to the messaging decisions the Administration made.

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Finally, importantly, it at least appears to rely explicitly on the personal account of Petraeus himself.

This candid, real-time assessment from then-CIA director Petraeus offers a glimpse of what many intelligence officials were saying privately as top Obama officials set aside the truth about Benghazi and spun a fanciful tale about a movie that never mattered and a demonstration that never happened.

David Petraeus, who tried and failed to get his preferred spin of the attack in Benghazi accepted by the Obama Administration, who subsequently got fired, purportedly for fucking and possibly sharing classified information with his mistress, went to Dick Cheney’s propagandist to try to get his preferred spin adopted after the fact.

That’s what this Benghazi campaign has become.

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more plus links:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/05/11/petraeus-revenge/#more-35243